Atos is ramping up the support it can offer to enterprises that want to decarbonize their operations and curb greenhouse gas emissions to assist in the global fight against climate change. The French IT services company is bringing a portfolio of tools and services to market to help enterprises calculate and reduce their carbon emissions and carry out “Digital Decarbonisation Assessments” to pinpoint areas within their operations ripe for improvement.
Its clients will also be able to tap into the capabilities of The Atos Digital Decarbonisation Platform, which is designed to automate the collection, calculation, and reporting of emissions data across their organizations so they can make data-driven improvements to their operations.
During a press conference to discuss the announcement, Nourdine Bihmane, head of decarbonization at Atos, said creating a platform of their own would be a time-consuming and effort-filled process for enterprises to do for themselves, which is why Atos is doing it on its client’s behalf.
“Giving our clients a clear vision of their carbon footprint and proposing a carbon reduction strategy are some of the biggest ways we can help them change,” he said.
“But it’s a complex picture, filled with data from hundreds of services. In the past, it would have taken organizations considerable time and investment to understand all that data.”
The company will also provide enterprises with access to digital twin-type technology to use modeling techniques to figure out how to tweak their operations to reduce their carbon emissions and low-carbon data centers to host their workloads.
Positive impact
During the press conference, Jason Warren, vice president of Atos’s net-zero transformation portfolio, spoke about the positive impact shifting workloads to the cloud can have on the number of emissions a company produces.
“While it’s estimated that digital and ICT consumes about 4% of the carbon emissions worldwide, digital technologies can help reduce global carbon emissions by between 15 and 30% through solutions in energy manufacturing, agriculture buildings, and transportation, just to name a few,” he said.
“Classic technologies that we’re already working with – such as hybrid cloud computing [and] moving workloads to low emission datacentres or first-generation industrial automation using scripting, mobile networks for connected solutions internet of things [IoT] solutions [can all make a difference], but then we move on to emerging technologies as well.
“Leveraging new services such as smarter IoT solutions integrated with artificial intelligence and the new digital platforms [already discussed].”
However, he continued, technology can only achieve so much when it comes to curbing emissions and helping firms realize their sustainability goals. “Building these solutions is not the story for emission reduction progress and the innovation we need. You must wrap it with the right policies, frameworks, and commitments and complement those with climate knowledge.”
At this point, Atos will also offer enterprises hands-on support in achieving their sustainability goals via one of the nine “Net Zero Transformation Centres of Excellence” Atos is planning to open worldwide, one of which will be in London.
“The Centre will allow customers to leverage Atos’s global skills, resources, and network of more than 200 experts to create their path towards becoming a net-zero, resilient business,” the company said.
Recruitment drive
The organization also plans to embark on a recruitment drive to grow the team that will staff these centers to include 500 individuals by the end of 2022.
This package of measures and support that Atos brings to market approves its “Net Zero” sustainability agenda. The firm strives to ensure its operations result in no incremental increase in greenhouse gases it releases into the atmosphere.
In February 2021, Atos went public with an update on how efforts to decarbonize its business were progressing. The company confirmed it was shortening its self-imposed deadline to reach net-zero emissions by eight years by 2028.
This means the company has until 2025 to cut its global carbon emissions by 50%, but it has also committed to offsetting all its residual emissions by 2028.
The company claims the level of its commitment to the decarbonization of its operations and that of its customers is a source of competitive differentiation within the broader IT services market. Its acquisition of climate strategy consultancy EcoAct in October 2020 underpinned it.
However, the company is intent on doing more to “motivate and urge” its end client and its partners to “set and meet” their own ambitious net-zero emissions targets as well, said Bihmane.
This includes delivering on its “market-changing vision” for “supporting clients on their net-zero journey,” he said, with the IT market’s first “end-to-end portfolio” of decarbonization-focused services, platforms and offerings.
“[This] will enable our clients to reach net zero with even more urgency than ever before,” he added.
Elsewhere during the presentation, Atos CEO Elie Girard said the package of measures it is bringing to market shows its commitment to helping its clients and employees. The general public “live, work and develop sustainably” as it sets about to become the leading provider of “secure and decarbonized” digital services.
“Digital technology is an enabler for businesses to reduce carbon emissions. Digital services alone could directly enable from 15 to 30% reduction in emissions needed by 2030,” said Girard.
“We want to ensure all our clients and partners adopt digital technology that significantly reduces their carbon emissions, so they can reach net zero as fast as possible,” he said. “Digital decarbonization improves efficiency, reduces cost, and drives innovation to achieve success. We believe climate action also makes perfect commercial sense.”
